While people are increasingly using data retrieval capabilities of computing devices to access information of a variety of types, voice-based functionality of telephones continues to be commonly used for a variety of purposes, including to obtain information of various types. For example, telephones are frequently used to obtain address and telephone number information for designated individuals or businesses, such as via automated and/or manual directory assistance services. In addition, enhanced directory assistance services exist to provide a variety of types of additional information to telephone users, such as movie listings, weather reports, sports scores, traffic reports, etc. Moreover, some businesses may provide automated telephone systems to provide various information to customers and/or partners about their businesses, such as via Interactive Voice Response (“IVR”) systems. Other types of systems may similarly provide a variety of other types of functionality to voice-based telephone users, such as voice message recording and/or forwarding services (e.g., to record a voice message to later be provided to one or more designated recipients), transcription services (e.g., to record voice-based information that will later be manually and/or automatically converted into text), etc. While various services and systems thus exist for telephone users to obtain some types of voice-based information, it is nonetheless often difficult for telephone users to obtain a variety of other types of functionality.
In addition, it is often difficult for companies and other entities to effectively provide promotional and other types of information to others and/or to provide information to others about products and/or services that are available. For example, while a variety of types Of advertising models are known (e.g., via traditional print media; radio; television; billboards; Internet-based banner ads and sponsored links and pop-up ads; location-based services, such as via data services of mobile devices; etc.), all suffer from various known problems, including difficulties in providing information to users that is currently of interest and in a form and/or manner that is desired.